I’m joining The Athletic because of a conversation I had last week. OK, the conversation didn’t decide my choice, but it was illustrative of why I made it. After practice I had the space to talk with Steve Kerr at length for an article. A range of topics were explored, some I’d never really had the time to ask about in the past. I came away ruminating on how other commitments used to run roughshod over a conversation like that.

It wasn’t that such conversations were impossible at my old employer. They happened, on occasion. It’s just that the opportunities were getting fewer and farther between, as we were expected to feed a constant churn. There are incredibly talented people over there, but they’re often spread thin and permanently locked in the inexorable, dopamine draining present.

The business can feel like a ceaseless quest to hold attention spans, to momentarily and manipulatively seize the reader’s gaze like a blinking billboard on a street replete with them. Put another way, if someone uttered a controversial quote, your day would be dominated by that quote. That was your blinking billboard for that day. No time for analysis, and little want for discretion. And hey, some quotes are just that good. But day by day, the lines between quality and clickbait blur, as your incentives lead you to mistake the former for the latter.

The Athletic is the counterexample, the other kind of shining light if you will. As I mentioned in my job announcement interview, per an excellent Marcus Thompson article on the Warriors’ head of physical performance and sports medicine, Chelsea Lane, “At the end of Marcus’ feature, we were treated to a highly tantalizing, perhaps newsworthy Steph Curry quote. At places I’ve worked, Marcus would have had to run that bit of information into the ground, ditch the Lane feature, and have his day revolve around the amplification of a quote. Instead, it stood as a reward for readers.”

And I want readers, not strangers whose attention I grabbed for a second because I snapped a photo of Drake outside a locker room. The readers matter to me more than ever, because they’re the ones who emailed during the forced sabbatical. Turns out they’re real people, people who notice if you do right by them, people who care if you’re no longer part of their routine. And I’m partial to them because they happen to love the game I love, and if you love basketball you understand something about what’s good in the world. Really, you can’t be that bad.

Speaking of my love for this game, it was about the only thing I ever could relate to my father over. I love him, but that’s true. I understood him best when he wanted to throw the remote control at the Knicks during yet another choke job. My career, so far, has either been a journey after that feeling of illusory communion or an investigation into why these ties bond. But bond, they do: To sons and fathers, players and coaches, and yes, writers and readers. So I’m ready to write, more ready than ever. And I’m ready to watch, sans distraction, in search of something truly worth communicating.

If you’re not on board yet, subscribe for 40 percent off at theathletic.com/ethanisfreed.The deal will be available as long as the Warriors are alive in the playoffs.

(Top photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

After graduating from Cal, Ethan worked in NBA public relations before wising up. He joined WarriorsWorld and even started showing up at Oracle Arena. In his first full-time season with ESPN, he picked the Warriors to win their first title in 40 years and they obliged. But the best is yet to come. Suivez Ethan sur Twitter @SherwoodStrauss.